You hear all the time that the top "X" percent of people pay "Y" percent of all income taxes.   That information is almost never consistent and is subject to wide interpretation.  The Internal Revenue Service actually does report this information and it can be found at www.taxfoundation.org.  Here are some interesting figures as actually reported for the 2006 calendar year:

1. The total number of taxpayers was 135,719,160, which does not include all those that did not pay any taxes.
2. The total of all income taxes paid in 2006 was 1.02 trillion dollars.  That's $1,020,000,000,000!!!
3. The top 1% of those paying income taxes accounted for 39.89% of all taxes. 
4. The top 5% of those paying income taxes accounted for 60.14% of all taxes.
5. The top 50% of those paying income taxes accounted for 97.01% of all taxes.  Wow!!